A new attendance system at Singapore Polytechnic (SP) has drawn mixed reactions, with an online petition asking for the system to be reviewed garnering about 700 signatures. To mark their attendance, students have to key in a code that will be displayed in class into an app on their phones or on a website, using the school’s Wi-Fi network. If they fail to do so in 15 minutes, they will be marked as absent. But SP students have expressed concerns that the system might have glitches, and might not reflect their attendance even if they made it to classes within the stipulated time. Some also say they were penalised when they forgot to mark their attendance even when they had turned up. At Nanyang Poly, students tap their student cards on a card reader to sign their attendance, or do so manually. Lecturers at the other three polytechnics take students’ attendance manually and record them electronically. They said most students meet the minimum attendance rate of 80-85%.